President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he tours the U.S. border with Mexico at the Rio Grande on the southern border, Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019, in McAllen, Texas. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Surrounded by Texas’ Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, and by Border Patrol agents, President Donald Trump said people from the Middle East and all over the world were coming through the southern border and that a barrier is needed to prevent them from coming in.

He also said there have never been as many apprehensions as there are now. That’s verifiably wrong.

"Whether it’s steel or concrete, you don't care. We need a barrier, and they have done a fantastic job," Trump said Jan. 10. "Never so many apprehensions ever in our history."

His comment came as an effort to sway public and lawmakers’ support for funding for a border wall at the southern border. The federal government is in a partial shutdown as Trump and Democrats in congress disagree over the appropriations of taxpayers’ funds for the wall project.

Trump made his remark in McAllen, Texas. McAllen is part of Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector. Were the sector’s apprehensions in 2017 and 2018 the highest ever? No, they weren’t.

In 2017, the Rio Grande Valley sector made 137,562 apprehensions; in 2018, it recorded 162,262 apprehensions.

In 2014, Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley made 256,393 apprehensions.

The latest available monthly data for southwest border apprehensions is for November (part of fiscal year 2019). This past November, Border Patrol recorded 51,856 apprehensions. Is that the highest apprehension number in one November? No. In November of fiscal year 2000, Border Patrol logged 76,196 apprehensions.

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